they gave Klonoa a hoverboard, don't try to convince me that this game isn't epic
Klonoa 1 always had this nostalgia feeling to me even though I didn't actually play it until last night, the sequel on the other hand was pretty much unknown to me, good thing I decided to change that
compared to the first game, Klonoa 2 has a more traditional "save the kingdom" plot this time around. Klonoa's been summoned to Lunatea to retrieve the Elements from each of Lunatea's four kingdoms and is assisted by Lolo, a priestess in training that powers his Wind Ring, and Popka, some goofy dog thing that tags around and lends the two assistance. along the way, they're up against Leorina the sky pirate and Tat, who are also after the Elements so they can save the kingdoms on their own terms. like with the first game, the lighthearted tone becomes more serious as the story nears its end, though it's a little bit more toned down compared to Door of Phantomile. Klonoa in particular is a bit older and more confident this time around as he's already gone through his character development after the first game so now he's the one keeping everyone's spirits high. Klonoa 2 once again delivers a wonderful story that will probably stick with you.
the gameplay's very identical to the previous game, it's more Klonoa! pick up enemies, toss them at things, get a jumping boost with them, and you can still toss them right at the screen, they remembered the most important feature! a new additional however is the hoverboard levels which you'll have to do ever once in a while, one of which has its own boss battle. the developers knew what they were doing since the hoverboard levels are actually fun to play. you might die a few times on the later ones but they never go into full frustration mode, Mega Man X developers you better take notes. the sidescrolling levels also introduce some new enemies such as Boomies that can explode certain blocks, Likuries that absorb enemies and destroy crystal barricades, Erbils that give Klonoa a long electrified jump, and Kitons that let Klonoa fly briefly, all of these new additions bring new challenges to overcome in these puzzle solving levels. the game gets more challenging later on, sooner than the first game did, and with the much longer levels here you'll probably lose lives a bit along the way, but the game isn't afraid to give up pity lives when you start sucking a little too much so it's your choice to grab them if you choose to do so.
Klonoa 1's spritework was kino, but Klonoa 2 looks excellent as well, it's very impressive for an early PS2 game. now I'm not going to say that the Phantasy Reverie style looks bad, but it just doesn't do the original art style justice. the thick outlines are gone, everything's really bright including the darker levels, the text boxes and fonts are more simplified and generic, the remake looks too squeaky clean and has dare I say, a 3D mobile game aesthetic. something about those original PS2 visuals just hit the perfect spot, they give off the dreamlike atmosphere the series is going for much more accurately. the soundtrack is just as good as the first game, and maybe even better, I mean there's an entire music track that's just Klonoa singing gibberish. it's not even during the final boss like Sonic Adventure or Super Mario Odyssey, the song's in some random hoverboard level, it comes out of nowhere and I love it. go listen to Klonoa music if you want to have a chill time.
last time I asked for a higher difficulty and more things to do with the gameplay and Klonoa 2 delivers, another WAHOO out of 10! interestingly though, I still kinda prefer Klonoa 1 even after all that, only very slightly though as I kinda have a bias for Klonoa 1's 2.5D style and endgame. as a game Klonoa 2 is a better version of Klonoa 1 and I'd highly recommend people to play these two games. the originals, via Phantasy Reverie, it doesn't matter, just play them please. Klonoa may be a dream traveler, but don't let him disappear like a forgotten dream.
peak music btw
Klonoa 1 always had this nostalgia feeling to me even though I didn't actually play it until last night, the sequel on the other hand was pretty much unknown to me, good thing I decided to change that
compared to the first game, Klonoa 2 has a more traditional "save the kingdom" plot this time around. Klonoa's been summoned to Lunatea to retrieve the Elements from each of Lunatea's four kingdoms and is assisted by Lolo, a priestess in training that powers his Wind Ring, and Popka, some goofy dog thing that tags around and lends the two assistance. along the way, they're up against Leorina the sky pirate and Tat, who are also after the Elements so they can save the kingdoms on their own terms. like with the first game, the lighthearted tone becomes more serious as the story nears its end, though it's a little bit more toned down compared to Door of Phantomile. Klonoa in particular is a bit older and more confident this time around as he's already gone through his character development after the first game so now he's the one keeping everyone's spirits high. Klonoa 2 once again delivers a wonderful story that will probably stick with you.
the gameplay's very identical to the previous game, it's more Klonoa! pick up enemies, toss them at things, get a jumping boost with them, and you can still toss them right at the screen, they remembered the most important feature! a new additional however is the hoverboard levels which you'll have to do ever once in a while, one of which has its own boss battle. the developers knew what they were doing since the hoverboard levels are actually fun to play. you might die a few times on the later ones but they never go into full frustration mode, Mega Man X developers you better take notes. the sidescrolling levels also introduce some new enemies such as Boomies that can explode certain blocks, Likuries that absorb enemies and destroy crystal barricades, Erbils that give Klonoa a long electrified jump, and Kitons that let Klonoa fly briefly, all of these new additions bring new challenges to overcome in these puzzle solving levels. the game gets more challenging later on, sooner than the first game did, and with the much longer levels here you'll probably lose lives a bit along the way, but the game isn't afraid to give up pity lives when you start sucking a little too much so it's your choice to grab them if you choose to do so.
Klonoa 1's spritework was kino, but Klonoa 2 looks excellent as well, it's very impressive for an early PS2 game. now I'm not going to say that the Phantasy Reverie style looks bad, but it just doesn't do the original art style justice. the thick outlines are gone, everything's really bright including the darker levels, the text boxes and fonts are more simplified and generic, the remake looks too squeaky clean and has dare I say, a 3D mobile game aesthetic. something about those original PS2 visuals just hit the perfect spot, they give off the dreamlike atmosphere the series is going for much more accurately. the soundtrack is just as good as the first game, and maybe even better, I mean there's an entire music track that's just Klonoa singing gibberish. it's not even during the final boss like Sonic Adventure or Super Mario Odyssey, the song's in some random hoverboard level, it comes out of nowhere and I love it. go listen to Klonoa music if you want to have a chill time.
last time I asked for a higher difficulty and more things to do with the gameplay and Klonoa 2 delivers, another WAHOO out of 10! interestingly though, I still kinda prefer Klonoa 1 even after all that, only very slightly though as I kinda have a bias for Klonoa 1's 2.5D style and endgame. as a game Klonoa 2 is a better version of Klonoa 1 and I'd highly recommend people to play these two games. the originals, via Phantasy Reverie, it doesn't matter, just play them please. Klonoa may be a dream traveler, but don't let him disappear like a forgotten dream.
peak music btw
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia has you play as an amnesiac emo girl in thigh-high boots that gets all her powers by absorbing magic symbols into her back
yeah I’m interested
here it is: the last Metroidvania. no more after this! there’s still a couple Castlevania games that were made since, many of the questionable variety, but for all intent and purposes this is the final Castlevania that follows the style Symphony of the Night introduced all the way in 1997.
what is this “Order of Ecclesia” you may ask? well I can’t tell you because that’d be a spoiler, but Ecclesia is the residence of this game’s main character Shanoa, and she’s tasked by her mentor Barlowe to take part in a ritual to absorb the power of Dominus, a powerful glyph that have the power to destroy Dracula. however another member by the name of Albus sabotages the ritual, stealing Dominus for himself and leaving Shanoa without her memories in the process. you remember Hugh from Circle of the Moon? well Albus is like him, but worse, yet simultaneously better at the same time. Albus’s actions are definitely more catastrophic, but believe or not there’s a reasonable explanation for why he does this, though once again that’s spoiler territory. for most of the game onward Shanoa has to go after Albus, who sends her on a wild goose chase through various locations. he’s encountered at least another two times during the journey, and in neither of these times does he choose to willingly attack Shanoa, hinting that his motivations are deeper than they seem. this is definitely a return to form after Portrait of Ruin had a little more lighthearted vibe, and the story only gets darker for the characters (specifically Shanoa) the further you go into it.
okay you’re not actually spending your time venturing in Dracula’s Castle, well for most of the game anyway. what you thought you wouldn’t be going in that castle eventually? what do you think this is, Dawn of Sorrow??? likewise with Portrait of Ruin, most of what you’ll be doing is going through smaller contained areas, though this time they’re actual locations rather than paintings that you enter. and just like with real life, reality can often be disappointing. a good portion of the locations don’t really have much going on with them, both in size and visually so expect to see a lot of forest and mountains. that said there’s still a couple of cool places to venture through such as the Monastery which is a former religious building taken over by monsters, the Kalidus Channel that has extremely stormy weather as well as a sunken ship to visit, Minera Prison Island where you need to avoid the spotlights unless a powerful monster comes to attack you, the Lighthouse while pretty small also houses a giant crab that chases you to the top, and probably the coolest area being the Skeleton Cave, an cave entirely made of bones and has nothing but skeleton enemies, one of which being a big old skeleton dinosaur, what a cool area. well I mean the Skeleton Cave was already done in Harmony of Dissonance, but that doesn't mean it still isn’t cool the second time. eventually you do get to return to Dracula’s Castle and it has a couple of the usual stuff that you’d expect to see (a library, underground section, clock tower etc.). the castle here, despite not being able to enter it until the last third of the game, is probably bigger than the one in Portrait of Ruin. I suppose this is the power of having an upper left section.
you’re back to being relegated to only one character in this game, but that’s okay since Shanoa’s cool. defensively she uses her equipment as you expect by buying them at shops or finding them along the way, offensively however is where things are a bit different. Shanoa doesn’t get her weapons by enemy drops, instead she has to rely on absorbing glyphs to obtain access to her weaponry. when she obtains, say, a Sword glyph, she’s able to equip them on both of her hands and attack with both the X and Y buttons, meaning you don’t need to grind for another sword. once you have one you’re all set, until you find a more powerful version of that glyph. protip: use Axes. a lot. they’re really good in this game, you have my word. she can also use magic attacks as well such as the Elementals, Light, and Darkness, and you can combine them by having a weapon in one slot and magic in another to create a special combination move powered by your Hearts, all you need to do is perform the old school technique of pressing Up and the Attack button at the same time (it can be done with the same glyph on each hand too). just keep note that your glyphs are powered by the MP bar, meaning once the MP bar is drained, Shanoa will be unable to attack for a brief period, emphasis on brief as it’ll go back up to full after about three seconds so it’s really not a hindrance. there’s also glyphs that you can use by pressing the R button. a lot of them are pretty situational but eventually you do get some that boost various stats temporarily so you’ll likely want to stick with them for the boss fights. all the bosses have some sort of weakness whether it’ll be elemental or even weapon based so keep in that mind if you want to have an easier time with the bosses, because they will kick your ass. this does mean that a lot of the boss fights will tend to go down to “use the big damage move until your hearts are gone, then mash X and Y with their weaknesses every chance you get” so it can get a bit repetitive at times, but the bosses are pretty well-designed and challenging despite that so they’ll still be able to keep you somewhat engaged.
surprise surprise, side quests are back, and this time they’re nowhere near as schizo and random as the ones in the previous game! during the course of the game, Shanoa will encounter villagers trapped in stasis hiding in various areas. she can free them by absorbing the glyph above them. the villager you rescued will then return to the Wygol Village which acts as a somewhat hub of the game and they’ll offer you a quest when you go back and talk to them over there. the quests are a bit more traditional this time around as most of the time they’ll usually ask you to retrieve items for them but on some occasions they change it up by asking you to take a picture of an enemy or defeating a certain number of enemies or some other thing. unfortunately a lot of those item ones require you to get rare enemy drops, which means you’re going to have to increase that Luck stat as much as you can. a lot of these quests can be pretty annoying but the rewards you get for them are pretty great so if you want to take the chance to get some helpful items (which you’ll want to because this game’s pretty tough) then make sure you get to work on those quests.
there’s not as much sprite reusing as last time so I’m guessing that this game had a little more time in the oven, that and instead of reusing four locations, it only reuses two locations this time! on top of that the art style for the portraits returns to the gothic style rather than the anime one, though Ayami Kojima is still not the one making the portraits as they have Masaki Hirooka being the illustrator this time. I like this style, it's not quite Kojima but it's still very nice and a worthy successor to her art. for the music, well it’s great, though you probably already knew that. this is the first track you hear when you boot up the game, so that should say more than enough but I’m still continuing anyway. Ecclesia is what you hear during the beginning monologue that’s in a lot of the later Castlevanias and no other track can better set up the mood for the game then this one. Sapphire Elegy is probably one of the memorable tracks in this game as this is essentially where the tutorial takes place, it’s a pretty soothing theme that suits Ecclesia yet also hints to some darker things going on in a brief portion of the track. Destiny’s Stage is your world map theme which is cool since there hasn’t been one since Belmont’s Revenge, anyway I appreciate the gothic and mysterious tones that this one gives off, it really makes you feel that you have a serious mission to accomplish. Chapel Hidden in Smoke plays at the Monastery which is the first actual area with active enemies, I don’t actually have much to say about this one it’s just another solid beginning theme that suits the vibe of the game. Serenade of the Hearth is an interesting one. I think the intention was to have a another relaxing track but I always found it more melancholic which suits the Wygol Village when you first visit it since almost all the inhabitants are abducted when you first arrive, which became a little more odd of me when it kept playing even after all the villagers were returned. Metal Slug is that you??? nah that’s a boss theme of this game, but you do hear it when facing a giant crab so that has to count for something. A Clashing of Waves should tell you how cool it is by including a rocking guitar during most of the track. you might be surprised to find out that this tune plays during a water area, well a stormy water area. Cantus Motet -1- is pretty much the Albus theme, some part of the tracks are oddly tranquil but there’s also feelings of regret throughout giving you an insight that’s more to Albus than it seems. Jaws of a Scorched Earth is a title that goes hard, which is ironic considering the track is more groovy than intense, I’m a little surprised it’s actually from Castlevania since it feels like something I’d probably hear in Pokémon B2/W2. I’m not sure if this is my favorite track of the game but it’s definitely close.
bassbassbassbassbassbassbassbass
pianopianopianopiano
VERTICAL SHOT
yeah I’m thinking Order of Ecclesia has a great soundtrack
and finally I’ll conclude by showing off Welcome to Legend, which plays in the file select screen after completing the game. Order of Ecclesia can be a bit rough at times, but it is nonetheless an excellent entry in the Castlevania franchise, and unfortunately the final entry to not only be apart of the official timeline, but also the final to follow the Metroidvania format as the sales for the game were at an all-time low, which might have contributed to this regrettable end. no more leveling up, no more increasing your HP and MP, no more 100%ing the castle, no more items or techniques to cheese through the game, it’s all over. almost 15 years later and there still hasn’t been a Castlevania in this style since, at least not in an official capacity. it lives on through Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which not only has Koji Igarashi at the helm, but with Michiru Yamane composing the music and they even got Ayami Kojima to draw a single illustration for it, but this isn’t a Bloodstained review so I’ll end it off there. Order of Ecclesia is an end of an era, but it along with the games before have helped create a genre that still thrives to this very day. as a motivational quote from a quick Google search might say, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
TL;DR: Shanoa did nothing wrong
yeah I’m interested
here it is: the last Metroidvania. no more after this! there’s still a couple Castlevania games that were made since, many of the questionable variety, but for all intent and purposes this is the final Castlevania that follows the style Symphony of the Night introduced all the way in 1997.
what is this “Order of Ecclesia” you may ask? well I can’t tell you because that’d be a spoiler, but Ecclesia is the residence of this game’s main character Shanoa, and she’s tasked by her mentor Barlowe to take part in a ritual to absorb the power of Dominus, a powerful glyph that have the power to destroy Dracula. however another member by the name of Albus sabotages the ritual, stealing Dominus for himself and leaving Shanoa without her memories in the process. you remember Hugh from Circle of the Moon? well Albus is like him, but worse, yet simultaneously better at the same time. Albus’s actions are definitely more catastrophic, but believe or not there’s a reasonable explanation for why he does this, though once again that’s spoiler territory. for most of the game onward Shanoa has to go after Albus, who sends her on a wild goose chase through various locations. he’s encountered at least another two times during the journey, and in neither of these times does he choose to willingly attack Shanoa, hinting that his motivations are deeper than they seem. this is definitely a return to form after Portrait of Ruin had a little more lighthearted vibe, and the story only gets darker for the characters (specifically Shanoa) the further you go into it.
okay you’re not actually spending your time venturing in Dracula’s Castle, well for most of the game anyway. what you thought you wouldn’t be going in that castle eventually? what do you think this is, Dawn of Sorrow??? likewise with Portrait of Ruin, most of what you’ll be doing is going through smaller contained areas, though this time they’re actual locations rather than paintings that you enter. and just like with real life, reality can often be disappointing. a good portion of the locations don’t really have much going on with them, both in size and visually so expect to see a lot of forest and mountains. that said there’s still a couple of cool places to venture through such as the Monastery which is a former religious building taken over by monsters, the Kalidus Channel that has extremely stormy weather as well as a sunken ship to visit, Minera Prison Island where you need to avoid the spotlights unless a powerful monster comes to attack you, the Lighthouse while pretty small also houses a giant crab that chases you to the top, and probably the coolest area being the Skeleton Cave, an cave entirely made of bones and has nothing but skeleton enemies, one of which being a big old skeleton dinosaur, what a cool area. well I mean the Skeleton Cave was already done in Harmony of Dissonance, but that doesn't mean it still isn’t cool the second time. eventually you do get to return to Dracula’s Castle and it has a couple of the usual stuff that you’d expect to see (a library, underground section, clock tower etc.). the castle here, despite not being able to enter it until the last third of the game, is probably bigger than the one in Portrait of Ruin. I suppose this is the power of having an upper left section.
you’re back to being relegated to only one character in this game, but that’s okay since Shanoa’s cool. defensively she uses her equipment as you expect by buying them at shops or finding them along the way, offensively however is where things are a bit different. Shanoa doesn’t get her weapons by enemy drops, instead she has to rely on absorbing glyphs to obtain access to her weaponry. when she obtains, say, a Sword glyph, she’s able to equip them on both of her hands and attack with both the X and Y buttons, meaning you don’t need to grind for another sword. once you have one you’re all set, until you find a more powerful version of that glyph. protip: use Axes. a lot. they’re really good in this game, you have my word. she can also use magic attacks as well such as the Elementals, Light, and Darkness, and you can combine them by having a weapon in one slot and magic in another to create a special combination move powered by your Hearts, all you need to do is perform the old school technique of pressing Up and the Attack button at the same time (it can be done with the same glyph on each hand too). just keep note that your glyphs are powered by the MP bar, meaning once the MP bar is drained, Shanoa will be unable to attack for a brief period, emphasis on brief as it’ll go back up to full after about three seconds so it’s really not a hindrance. there’s also glyphs that you can use by pressing the R button. a lot of them are pretty situational but eventually you do get some that boost various stats temporarily so you’ll likely want to stick with them for the boss fights. all the bosses have some sort of weakness whether it’ll be elemental or even weapon based so keep in that mind if you want to have an easier time with the bosses, because they will kick your ass. this does mean that a lot of the boss fights will tend to go down to “use the big damage move until your hearts are gone, then mash X and Y with their weaknesses every chance you get” so it can get a bit repetitive at times, but the bosses are pretty well-designed and challenging despite that so they’ll still be able to keep you somewhat engaged.
surprise surprise, side quests are back, and this time they’re nowhere near as schizo and random as the ones in the previous game! during the course of the game, Shanoa will encounter villagers trapped in stasis hiding in various areas. she can free them by absorbing the glyph above them. the villager you rescued will then return to the Wygol Village which acts as a somewhat hub of the game and they’ll offer you a quest when you go back and talk to them over there. the quests are a bit more traditional this time around as most of the time they’ll usually ask you to retrieve items for them but on some occasions they change it up by asking you to take a picture of an enemy or defeating a certain number of enemies or some other thing. unfortunately a lot of those item ones require you to get rare enemy drops, which means you’re going to have to increase that Luck stat as much as you can. a lot of these quests can be pretty annoying but the rewards you get for them are pretty great so if you want to take the chance to get some helpful items (which you’ll want to because this game’s pretty tough) then make sure you get to work on those quests.
there’s not as much sprite reusing as last time so I’m guessing that this game had a little more time in the oven, that and instead of reusing four locations, it only reuses two locations this time! on top of that the art style for the portraits returns to the gothic style rather than the anime one, though Ayami Kojima is still not the one making the portraits as they have Masaki Hirooka being the illustrator this time. I like this style, it's not quite Kojima but it's still very nice and a worthy successor to her art. for the music, well it’s great, though you probably already knew that. this is the first track you hear when you boot up the game, so that should say more than enough but I’m still continuing anyway. Ecclesia is what you hear during the beginning monologue that’s in a lot of the later Castlevanias and no other track can better set up the mood for the game then this one. Sapphire Elegy is probably one of the memorable tracks in this game as this is essentially where the tutorial takes place, it’s a pretty soothing theme that suits Ecclesia yet also hints to some darker things going on in a brief portion of the track. Destiny’s Stage is your world map theme which is cool since there hasn’t been one since Belmont’s Revenge, anyway I appreciate the gothic and mysterious tones that this one gives off, it really makes you feel that you have a serious mission to accomplish. Chapel Hidden in Smoke plays at the Monastery which is the first actual area with active enemies, I don’t actually have much to say about this one it’s just another solid beginning theme that suits the vibe of the game. Serenade of the Hearth is an interesting one. I think the intention was to have a another relaxing track but I always found it more melancholic which suits the Wygol Village when you first visit it since almost all the inhabitants are abducted when you first arrive, which became a little more odd of me when it kept playing even after all the villagers were returned. Metal Slug is that you??? nah that’s a boss theme of this game, but you do hear it when facing a giant crab so that has to count for something. A Clashing of Waves should tell you how cool it is by including a rocking guitar during most of the track. you might be surprised to find out that this tune plays during a water area, well a stormy water area. Cantus Motet -1- is pretty much the Albus theme, some part of the tracks are oddly tranquil but there’s also feelings of regret throughout giving you an insight that’s more to Albus than it seems. Jaws of a Scorched Earth is a title that goes hard, which is ironic considering the track is more groovy than intense, I’m a little surprised it’s actually from Castlevania since it feels like something I’d probably hear in Pokémon B2/W2. I’m not sure if this is my favorite track of the game but it’s definitely close.
bassbassbassbassbassbassbassbass
pianopianopianopiano
VERTICAL SHOT
yeah I’m thinking Order of Ecclesia has a great soundtrack
and finally I’ll conclude by showing off Welcome to Legend, which plays in the file select screen after completing the game. Order of Ecclesia can be a bit rough at times, but it is nonetheless an excellent entry in the Castlevania franchise, and unfortunately the final entry to not only be apart of the official timeline, but also the final to follow the Metroidvania format as the sales for the game were at an all-time low, which might have contributed to this regrettable end. no more leveling up, no more increasing your HP and MP, no more 100%ing the castle, no more items or techniques to cheese through the game, it’s all over. almost 15 years later and there still hasn’t been a Castlevania in this style since, at least not in an official capacity. it lives on through Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which not only has Koji Igarashi at the helm, but with Michiru Yamane composing the music and they even got Ayami Kojima to draw a single illustration for it, but this isn’t a Bloodstained review so I’ll end it off there. Order of Ecclesia is an end of an era, but it along with the games before have helped create a genre that still thrives to this very day. as a motivational quote from a quick Google search might say, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
TL;DR: Shanoa did nothing wrong
playing this game decides whether or not you're a big baby or a man, defeating Christopher Robin determines if you truly are God himself
2009
I'm pretty sure one of these is still lying in the depths of my house somewhere, one day I'm going to be searching for some stuff only to get jumpscared by this thing
2005
you spend the entire game beating up children, holy based
there's no way something like this would be able to come out today people are just too sensitive nowadays, a game where children associated with stereotypes get beaten to a bloody pulp is too much for the modern zoomer. me on the other hand....I just think it's funny
the animations are all really great, it's kinda hard to believe they came from a Flash game in 2005, I guess that's the power of Dan Paladin. the main theme composed by Dustball is very goofy and upbeat and is elevated even greater for the fact that you are once again, beating up children. most of them aren't even trying to hurt you, they're just minding their own business before this buff purple kid gets dropped off and starts tearing them down one-by-one like a wrecking ball. in one section of the game you can even throw a child into a street and watch them get run over by a car, absolutely hilarious. the game has sort of a combo system where you can perform different attacks with the arrow keys and weak and strong buttons, there's not too much of them but there's this one dashing aerial punch that's really powerful and eats away everyone's health, so if start struggling later on then that's all you'll really need.
the game's only around ten minutes long but man what an entertaining ten minutes those are. if you got some free time on your hands and need to let out some steam, then this game will be here to help uplift your spirits.
Tom Fulp I kneel....maybe I will play Castle Crashers
there's no way something like this would be able to come out today people are just too sensitive nowadays, a game where children associated with stereotypes get beaten to a bloody pulp is too much for the modern zoomer. me on the other hand....I just think it's funny
the animations are all really great, it's kinda hard to believe they came from a Flash game in 2005, I guess that's the power of Dan Paladin. the main theme composed by Dustball is very goofy and upbeat and is elevated even greater for the fact that you are once again, beating up children. most of them aren't even trying to hurt you, they're just minding their own business before this buff purple kid gets dropped off and starts tearing them down one-by-one like a wrecking ball. in one section of the game you can even throw a child into a street and watch them get run over by a car, absolutely hilarious. the game has sort of a combo system where you can perform different attacks with the arrow keys and weak and strong buttons, there's not too much of them but there's this one dashing aerial punch that's really powerful and eats away everyone's health, so if start struggling later on then that's all you'll really need.
the game's only around ten minutes long but man what an entertaining ten minutes those are. if you got some free time on your hands and need to let out some steam, then this game will be here to help uplift your spirits.
Tom Fulp I kneel....maybe I will play Castle Crashers
"I love you!"
"Raging Fire!"
"YAAAAAAAAGGHHH"
kino....
damn, this game was pretty good, which is all the more surprising now that I found out that Portrait of Ruin was likely rushed, is it wrong to rate a rushed game so highly? probably but oh well it was really fun
surprisingly this game is a sequel to Castlevania: Bloodlines, well a sequel to it timeline wise as while that game took place during World War I, this one takes place during World War II. some crazed vampire artist dude named Brauner resurrected Dracula’s Castle and is stealing it for himself while Jonathan Morris, the son of John Morris, is out to investigate its reappearance along with Charlotte Aulin, his childhood friend and professional witch. not long after they go into the castle, they encounter a mysterious ghost that calls himself “Wind”, who’s somehow in control of himself and helps aid the two during the journey inside the castle, even if he’s glued in one singular room during most of the game. there’s also two vampire girls that are supposedly Brauner’s daughters, some merchant priest that gets bitten by a random vampire at some point, Death who wants to beat the crap out of Brauner for attempting to take the castle, and a bunch of floating paintings everywhere, yeah this story’s an interesting one. Portrait of Ruin’s overall mood is actually pretty lighthearted, well as lighthearted as a Castlevania story can get. there’s plenty of goofy moments that can happen for sure like Jonathan getting seduced during one of the boss fights, Charlotte getting too close to a vacuum cleaner, and not choosing to cure Vincent the merchant of his vampirism for the entire game, but there’s still some good serious story-telling involving Wind as well Jonathan coming to terms with the fate of his father. I really enjoyed the different vibe that Portrait of Ruin has and it’s nice that they had some more goofy fun this time around.
would you believe that you have to explore Dracula’s Castle in this game? (no way!) interestingly though, it’s the smallest one of the Metroidvania games, to the point where there’s just a big empty space at the top left of the complete map. “How do they make up for this really distracting empty space?” you may ask. have you ever heard of Super Mario 64? it’s a pretty obscure indie game not many people talk about, but in that game, you start right outside of a castle, go inside that castle, and jump into paintings scattered throughout which act as the levels or worlds of the game, Portrait of Ruin is pretty much that, but without the backwards long jumps. the first half of the game has four unique paintings that you can go into: City of Haze which is an old Victorian town, Sandy Grave that’s a desert with an Egyptian pyramid, Nation of Fools which is a demented circus that defies gravity, and Forest of Doom that houses an old building and swamp with way too many frogs. the paintings allow a great variety of locations that really makes this game stand out compared to what came before. no longer are you restricted by the set pieces of Dracula’s Castle, as cool as those set pieces are! unfortunately by the time you get to the second half, you expect to go through some more cool paintings, well kinda. the other four paintings are more or less remixed versions of the ones that you’ve gone through before, which is no doubt pretty disappointing. now, there are a good amount of changes that make them different enough: Dark Academy has more emphasis on the indoor sections and has this really cool storm in the background, Forgotten City has a blood moon and makes you enter the pyramid by going through a quicksand pit, Burnt Paradise is….burnt, and 13th Street….uh….well….there’s a werewolf at the end, yeah I can’t completely justify this. at the very least each of the paintings have somewhat different layouts and even completely new music, Dark Academy in particular has a remix of the first level track in Haunted Castle that has three different names, it’s also the only Haunted Castle remix I noticed so far in the later Castlevanias because Haunted Castle is a bad game.
you know what isn’t bad though? playing this game with two different characters. and I don’t mean that there’s bonus characters that have their own modes (though there is), the main campaign lets you play as two characters that you can switch between whenever and wherever. the first of the two is Jonathan Morris. he starts with the Vampire Killer off the bat but because he’s not a TRUE BELMONT the attack power of the whip is very terrible. you do get the chance to properly restore its power later but for most of the game you’ll be grabbing and using a variety of weapons found throughout the game ala Symphony and Sorrow. on top of that he’s also use to use sub-weapons, and he’s not just limited to the usual Holy Water, Cross, etc. type of weapons, he can use boomerangs, shurikens, kunai, a crossbow, grenades, iron balls, martial art techniques, and he can even throw pies as an attack! now the pie’s kind of a joke weapon you definitely don’t want to use it as a main option, but it’s surprisingly really good against one of the bosses, only made funnier by the identity of the boss weak to it. Jonathan’s probably the best Castlevania character when it comes to weapon variety, you’ll definitely be experiencing with him a lot early on before you get the usual overpowered weapons near the end.
on the other hand, Charlotte focuses more on casting spells, whether it’d be buffing stats for either her or Jonathan or just traditional magic attacks. Charlotte’s weapons are nowhere near as diverse as Jonathan’s nor are they as powerful so if you’re planning to use her in combat you’ll likely want to stick with her spells for the most part as that’s where her firepower comes from. all of her spells have charge times, but most of them only take about a second to do so so it really is not a hindrance. I would be remiss if I didn’t bring this up at some point, but one of her long charge time spells, Sanctuary, is required to access the second half of the point and overall the good ending. you get a sort of tutorial for it by testing it out on a stationary NPC, before the actual test has you attempting to pull it off on one of the bosses. every time Charlotte gets hit (which will be a lot) she has to redo the spell so you don’t even want to use her as your main, you’ll have to summon her to use the spell while playing as Jonathan and fend off the bosses (yes bosses) while making sure she doesn’t get hit or goes offscreen which also resets the spell. if you want my advice, have Jonathan use the Stonewall or Taunt sub-weapon so you have a better chance of them not ganging up on Charlotte. easily the worst part of the game right here (well except for the double Creature boss fight but at least that room’s optional) and it’s almost enough to make me lower the rating, but for better or worse I have some bias for this game, sorry!
oh yeah I’m supposed to be talking about Charlotte, yeah she’s cool, a bit overlooked too. a lot of her attacking spells are really good, and you’ll find her first great one, Gale Force, in the first painting of the game. it’ll carry you for pretty much the first half of the game and by the time it falls off, you’ll have access to her endgame spells, so yeah don’t sleep on her. Now as for whether I’m a Jonathan bro or a Charlotte bro, of the two I used Charlotte more often than Jonathan, which I’m pretty is the less popular option since Jonathan gets some powerful tools later on like the Alucard Spear and overall better defensive equipment. that said, Charlotte can still be pretty potent herself, you’ll just need to work a bit harder to get the right spells and accessories to make her a magical powerhouse, usually from the shop, side quests or even rare drops. what can I say, I do like my magician girls.
oh right side quests, those are in the game. you remember that Wind guy I brought up way earlier? visiting him allows you to take quests from him, a first for the franchise, and completing the quests reward you with some great items, especially the later ones. now you may be wondering why I’m dedicating an entire section talking about these quests, and the answer’s very simple. these quests are weird. okay not all of them, some are pretty standard stuff, but a vast majority of these are some of the most random quests I’ve ever seen in a video game.
“Hello Jonathan and Charlotte, it’s me, Wind! Can you go inside a painting and punch some meat for me?”
“Jonathan I need you to enter a Street Fighter command, also spin three times in front of me right after.”
“Can you go find this random dodo and bring the species to extinction? I think that’d be very funny.”
“Charlotte, can you dress up like a nun for me? Trust me, it’s very important.”
“Come talk to me when your money digits are 777.”
“Okay now talk to me when you’re broke.”
“Go and defeat 1,500 enemies. What? That’s too much? Nonsense! Go out and defeat 3,000 while you’re at it.”
“Can you go and find five cards for me? I’m bored standing here and I really need my solitaire.”
“Visit me when the clock says 12:00. No I don’t mean that clock, I mean the clock on your DS. What’s a DS? Do I have to explain it to you?”
“I can give you a poison sword, but first give me some moldy bread and a long sword. I hope you didn’t sell that long sword, there’s only one of them!”
“Bring me a New York Steak, the meat wasn’t enough.”
“Can you go visit a fellow ghost and listen to his musical performance? Pleeeease, he’s very lonely!
“Okay I know you brought me a New York Steak earlier and I appreciate that, but I also need five cakes.”
“Charlotte I need you to finish off Gergoth with the Blank Book. Why this useless empty book you ask? For the funny.”
I did not exaggerate any of this, okay maybe a little, but these are actual quests you can do in this game. it’s not even that these are really difficult, most of them aren’t too bad, it’s just the absurdity of these quests that makes you scratch your head wondering what IGA was smoking the night he came up with these. the thing is though is that you kinda want to complete these quests because some of the rewards you get for them are actually very helpful. one of the quests actually rewards you with the Alucard Spear, which is one of the best weapons in the game, so if you really want to net some good stuff, you probably want to work on those quests, but at the end of the day they’re still optional so if you don’t want to go through the trouble then you don’t have to.
graphics are nice as always, I’m not even sure what to say at this point. the many locations the game has to offer really makes you think about how nice the Castlevania games tend to look. I guess I should bring up that Portrait of Ruin does reuse a lot of sprites, a bit more often than the previous games did, but personally for me this doesn’t really bother me. at least they aren’t reusing the same 3D models all the time like a certain other franchise (Super Monkey Ball). the music in this game is very nice, a great step up from Dawn of Sorrow in my personal opinion. Michiru Yamane is composing the music as usual, but this time she’s joined by Yuzo Koshiro, who you might know for Ys, Streets of Rage, and Etrian Odyssey, epic soundtracks that you should also listen to. this wonderful track right here? that’s the Name Entry theme. Invitation of a Crazed Moon is a very groovy beginner track and probably one of the grooviest tracks in Castlevania. Victorian Fear is pretty intense for only the first painting in the game yet is also a great track to dance to. Silent Prison is a neat melancholic track and has a pretty fitting name and location since you here you play at what’s basically a torture chamber. Jail of Jewel has more of those groovy vibes and is especially memorable thanks to the enemies that appear when it plays (“I SEE YOU”). Hail of the Past takes you back to the past by giving up a nice Egyptian tune to listen to while you’re exploring the depths of a monster-filled pyramid. The Gears Go Awry continues the trend of the Clock Tower sections always having good music to listen to while Medusa Heads keep hitting you. Dance of Sadness is a wonderful track especially given the context, though you might have a hard time focusing on it since this is the Sanctuary boss fight. Meeting of Destiny surely is a meeting of destiny as this is the theme of Wind, you know the ghost dude that gives you the goofy quests to do, definitely not someone really important. this is the Smash Ultimate song. lastly I’ll leave you all off with Bad Situation, my personal favorite track of this game. you can easily tell that this one was composed by Yuzo Koshiro, it’s straight up an Etrian Odyssey track, right down to the old fashioned YM2608 sounds during some of the sections. okay there’s one more track I’ll briefly hint to, I won’t spoil exactly which one, but it’s a track from Castlevania III that I’m surprised hasn’t been remixed until now, I’m also really happy that it finally got a remix like damn about time right when I first heard it I went “finally yessssssssss”, very deserved.
excellent game, what else do you want me to say? well I guess I’ll admit I haven’t tried any of the bonus modes here, mostly due to my free time going on and off, as well as me just itching to move on towards other franchises I’m interested in, I’ll play them someday though! anyway the three bonus modes are Sisters Mode, a prequel to the events of this game, Old Armor Mode, where you control the Old Axe Armor enemy for the entire game, and Richiter Mode, a mode that lets you play as Richter Belmont and Maria Renard from Rondo of Blood. unfortunately there’s no Bloodlines Mode that could have had John Morris and Eric Lecarde, but I guess they didn't have the time to draw all new sprites for those two. oh yeah they didn’t have a lot of time for this game in general judging by the remixed second half, as well as the more noticeable reused sprites and rare typos, yet somehow, somehow, I still consider this to be one of the best in the franchise, maybe even my personal favorite? yeah I know Symphony is Symphony and Aria is Aria, but this game ain’t a slouch either, outside of what I just mentioned in the last sentence ago. two playable characters in the main game, as well as another five with their own modes, granted one of them is a joke mode but still, that is a lot of replay value. I’d love to continue praising this game despite its flaws, but I feel like I’ve said all I can think about, plus it’s 2:00 A.M. as I’m finishing typing this and I’m kinda getting burnt out so I’ll try to end it here. Portrait of Ruin: kino game. if you like the later Castlevania games and somehow missed out on this one, give it a shot, you won’t regret it blah blah blah play it now right now I don’t care how you do it just play it
did you know the opening video for this game was done by the same people who made the 3D JoJo OPs? just thought I should mention
"Raging Fire!"
"YAAAAAAAAGGHHH"
kino....
damn, this game was pretty good, which is all the more surprising now that I found out that Portrait of Ruin was likely rushed, is it wrong to rate a rushed game so highly? probably but oh well it was really fun
surprisingly this game is a sequel to Castlevania: Bloodlines, well a sequel to it timeline wise as while that game took place during World War I, this one takes place during World War II. some crazed vampire artist dude named Brauner resurrected Dracula’s Castle and is stealing it for himself while Jonathan Morris, the son of John Morris, is out to investigate its reappearance along with Charlotte Aulin, his childhood friend and professional witch. not long after they go into the castle, they encounter a mysterious ghost that calls himself “Wind”, who’s somehow in control of himself and helps aid the two during the journey inside the castle, even if he’s glued in one singular room during most of the game. there’s also two vampire girls that are supposedly Brauner’s daughters, some merchant priest that gets bitten by a random vampire at some point, Death who wants to beat the crap out of Brauner for attempting to take the castle, and a bunch of floating paintings everywhere, yeah this story’s an interesting one. Portrait of Ruin’s overall mood is actually pretty lighthearted, well as lighthearted as a Castlevania story can get. there’s plenty of goofy moments that can happen for sure like Jonathan getting seduced during one of the boss fights, Charlotte getting too close to a vacuum cleaner, and not choosing to cure Vincent the merchant of his vampirism for the entire game, but there’s still some good serious story-telling involving Wind as well Jonathan coming to terms with the fate of his father. I really enjoyed the different vibe that Portrait of Ruin has and it’s nice that they had some more goofy fun this time around.
would you believe that you have to explore Dracula’s Castle in this game? (no way!) interestingly though, it’s the smallest one of the Metroidvania games, to the point where there’s just a big empty space at the top left of the complete map. “How do they make up for this really distracting empty space?” you may ask. have you ever heard of Super Mario 64? it’s a pretty obscure indie game not many people talk about, but in that game, you start right outside of a castle, go inside that castle, and jump into paintings scattered throughout which act as the levels or worlds of the game, Portrait of Ruin is pretty much that, but without the backwards long jumps. the first half of the game has four unique paintings that you can go into: City of Haze which is an old Victorian town, Sandy Grave that’s a desert with an Egyptian pyramid, Nation of Fools which is a demented circus that defies gravity, and Forest of Doom that houses an old building and swamp with way too many frogs. the paintings allow a great variety of locations that really makes this game stand out compared to what came before. no longer are you restricted by the set pieces of Dracula’s Castle, as cool as those set pieces are! unfortunately by the time you get to the second half, you expect to go through some more cool paintings, well kinda. the other four paintings are more or less remixed versions of the ones that you’ve gone through before, which is no doubt pretty disappointing. now, there are a good amount of changes that make them different enough: Dark Academy has more emphasis on the indoor sections and has this really cool storm in the background, Forgotten City has a blood moon and makes you enter the pyramid by going through a quicksand pit, Burnt Paradise is….burnt, and 13th Street….uh….well….there’s a werewolf at the end, yeah I can’t completely justify this. at the very least each of the paintings have somewhat different layouts and even completely new music, Dark Academy in particular has a remix of the first level track in Haunted Castle that has three different names, it’s also the only Haunted Castle remix I noticed so far in the later Castlevanias because Haunted Castle is a bad game.
you know what isn’t bad though? playing this game with two different characters. and I don’t mean that there’s bonus characters that have their own modes (though there is), the main campaign lets you play as two characters that you can switch between whenever and wherever. the first of the two is Jonathan Morris. he starts with the Vampire Killer off the bat but because he’s not a TRUE BELMONT the attack power of the whip is very terrible. you do get the chance to properly restore its power later but for most of the game you’ll be grabbing and using a variety of weapons found throughout the game ala Symphony and Sorrow. on top of that he’s also use to use sub-weapons, and he’s not just limited to the usual Holy Water, Cross, etc. type of weapons, he can use boomerangs, shurikens, kunai, a crossbow, grenades, iron balls, martial art techniques, and he can even throw pies as an attack! now the pie’s kind of a joke weapon you definitely don’t want to use it as a main option, but it’s surprisingly really good against one of the bosses, only made funnier by the identity of the boss weak to it. Jonathan’s probably the best Castlevania character when it comes to weapon variety, you’ll definitely be experiencing with him a lot early on before you get the usual overpowered weapons near the end.
on the other hand, Charlotte focuses more on casting spells, whether it’d be buffing stats for either her or Jonathan or just traditional magic attacks. Charlotte’s weapons are nowhere near as diverse as Jonathan’s nor are they as powerful so if you’re planning to use her in combat you’ll likely want to stick with her spells for the most part as that’s where her firepower comes from. all of her spells have charge times, but most of them only take about a second to do so so it really is not a hindrance. I would be remiss if I didn’t bring this up at some point, but one of her long charge time spells, Sanctuary, is required to access the second half of the point and overall the good ending. you get a sort of tutorial for it by testing it out on a stationary NPC, before the actual test has you attempting to pull it off on one of the bosses. every time Charlotte gets hit (which will be a lot) she has to redo the spell so you don’t even want to use her as your main, you’ll have to summon her to use the spell while playing as Jonathan and fend off the bosses (yes bosses) while making sure she doesn’t get hit or goes offscreen which also resets the spell. if you want my advice, have Jonathan use the Stonewall or Taunt sub-weapon so you have a better chance of them not ganging up on Charlotte. easily the worst part of the game right here (well except for the double Creature boss fight but at least that room’s optional) and it’s almost enough to make me lower the rating, but for better or worse I have some bias for this game, sorry!
oh yeah I’m supposed to be talking about Charlotte, yeah she’s cool, a bit overlooked too. a lot of her attacking spells are really good, and you’ll find her first great one, Gale Force, in the first painting of the game. it’ll carry you for pretty much the first half of the game and by the time it falls off, you’ll have access to her endgame spells, so yeah don’t sleep on her. Now as for whether I’m a Jonathan bro or a Charlotte bro, of the two I used Charlotte more often than Jonathan, which I’m pretty is the less popular option since Jonathan gets some powerful tools later on like the Alucard Spear and overall better defensive equipment. that said, Charlotte can still be pretty potent herself, you’ll just need to work a bit harder to get the right spells and accessories to make her a magical powerhouse, usually from the shop, side quests or even rare drops. what can I say, I do like my magician girls.
oh right side quests, those are in the game. you remember that Wind guy I brought up way earlier? visiting him allows you to take quests from him, a first for the franchise, and completing the quests reward you with some great items, especially the later ones. now you may be wondering why I’m dedicating an entire section talking about these quests, and the answer’s very simple. these quests are weird. okay not all of them, some are pretty standard stuff, but a vast majority of these are some of the most random quests I’ve ever seen in a video game.
“Hello Jonathan and Charlotte, it’s me, Wind! Can you go inside a painting and punch some meat for me?”
“Jonathan I need you to enter a Street Fighter command, also spin three times in front of me right after.”
“Can you go find this random dodo and bring the species to extinction? I think that’d be very funny.”
“Charlotte, can you dress up like a nun for me? Trust me, it’s very important.”
“Come talk to me when your money digits are 777.”
“Okay now talk to me when you’re broke.”
“Go and defeat 1,500 enemies. What? That’s too much? Nonsense! Go out and defeat 3,000 while you’re at it.”
“Can you go and find five cards for me? I’m bored standing here and I really need my solitaire.”
“Visit me when the clock says 12:00. No I don’t mean that clock, I mean the clock on your DS. What’s a DS? Do I have to explain it to you?”
“I can give you a poison sword, but first give me some moldy bread and a long sword. I hope you didn’t sell that long sword, there’s only one of them!”
“Bring me a New York Steak, the meat wasn’t enough.”
“Can you go visit a fellow ghost and listen to his musical performance? Pleeeease, he’s very lonely!
“Okay I know you brought me a New York Steak earlier and I appreciate that, but I also need five cakes.”
“Charlotte I need you to finish off Gergoth with the Blank Book. Why this useless empty book you ask? For the funny.”
I did not exaggerate any of this, okay maybe a little, but these are actual quests you can do in this game. it’s not even that these are really difficult, most of them aren’t too bad, it’s just the absurdity of these quests that makes you scratch your head wondering what IGA was smoking the night he came up with these. the thing is though is that you kinda want to complete these quests because some of the rewards you get for them are actually very helpful. one of the quests actually rewards you with the Alucard Spear, which is one of the best weapons in the game, so if you really want to net some good stuff, you probably want to work on those quests, but at the end of the day they’re still optional so if you don’t want to go through the trouble then you don’t have to.
graphics are nice as always, I’m not even sure what to say at this point. the many locations the game has to offer really makes you think about how nice the Castlevania games tend to look. I guess I should bring up that Portrait of Ruin does reuse a lot of sprites, a bit more often than the previous games did, but personally for me this doesn’t really bother me. at least they aren’t reusing the same 3D models all the time like a certain other franchise (Super Monkey Ball). the music in this game is very nice, a great step up from Dawn of Sorrow in my personal opinion. Michiru Yamane is composing the music as usual, but this time she’s joined by Yuzo Koshiro, who you might know for Ys, Streets of Rage, and Etrian Odyssey, epic soundtracks that you should also listen to. this wonderful track right here? that’s the Name Entry theme. Invitation of a Crazed Moon is a very groovy beginner track and probably one of the grooviest tracks in Castlevania. Victorian Fear is pretty intense for only the first painting in the game yet is also a great track to dance to. Silent Prison is a neat melancholic track and has a pretty fitting name and location since you here you play at what’s basically a torture chamber. Jail of Jewel has more of those groovy vibes and is especially memorable thanks to the enemies that appear when it plays (“I SEE YOU”). Hail of the Past takes you back to the past by giving up a nice Egyptian tune to listen to while you’re exploring the depths of a monster-filled pyramid. The Gears Go Awry continues the trend of the Clock Tower sections always having good music to listen to while Medusa Heads keep hitting you. Dance of Sadness is a wonderful track especially given the context, though you might have a hard time focusing on it since this is the Sanctuary boss fight. Meeting of Destiny surely is a meeting of destiny as this is the theme of Wind, you know the ghost dude that gives you the goofy quests to do, definitely not someone really important. this is the Smash Ultimate song. lastly I’ll leave you all off with Bad Situation, my personal favorite track of this game. you can easily tell that this one was composed by Yuzo Koshiro, it’s straight up an Etrian Odyssey track, right down to the old fashioned YM2608 sounds during some of the sections. okay there’s one more track I’ll briefly hint to, I won’t spoil exactly which one, but it’s a track from Castlevania III that I’m surprised hasn’t been remixed until now, I’m also really happy that it finally got a remix like damn about time right when I first heard it I went “finally yessssssssss”, very deserved.
excellent game, what else do you want me to say? well I guess I’ll admit I haven’t tried any of the bonus modes here, mostly due to my free time going on and off, as well as me just itching to move on towards other franchises I’m interested in, I’ll play them someday though! anyway the three bonus modes are Sisters Mode, a prequel to the events of this game, Old Armor Mode, where you control the Old Axe Armor enemy for the entire game, and Richiter Mode, a mode that lets you play as Richter Belmont and Maria Renard from Rondo of Blood. unfortunately there’s no Bloodlines Mode that could have had John Morris and Eric Lecarde, but I guess they didn't have the time to draw all new sprites for those two. oh yeah they didn’t have a lot of time for this game in general judging by the remixed second half, as well as the more noticeable reused sprites and rare typos, yet somehow, somehow, I still consider this to be one of the best in the franchise, maybe even my personal favorite? yeah I know Symphony is Symphony and Aria is Aria, but this game ain’t a slouch either, outside of what I just mentioned in the last sentence ago. two playable characters in the main game, as well as another five with their own modes, granted one of them is a joke mode but still, that is a lot of replay value. I’d love to continue praising this game despite its flaws, but I feel like I’ve said all I can think about, plus it’s 2:00 A.M. as I’m finishing typing this and I’m kinda getting burnt out so I’ll try to end it here. Portrait of Ruin: kino game. if you like the later Castlevania games and somehow missed out on this one, give it a shot, you won’t regret it blah blah blah play it now right now I don’t care how you do it just play it
did you know the opening video for this game was done by the same people who made the 3D JoJo OPs? just thought I should mention
don't care, where's Garten of Banban 8
as someone who's well familiar with the current state of Mario Party, mostly from other people on the internet, I gotta say....this ain't bad
now I'm not a Mario Party guy, I was always the Mario Kart one instead so don't expect me to go "THIS ISN'T LIKE THE N64 AND GAMECUBE ONES GRAAAAAH" because my personal experiences with the Hudson Soft Mario Parties doesn't go beyond 8, DS, and recently a tiny bit of 7. I will say that when it comes to the post-Hudson Soft games, this is the one that's definitely the closest to the originals (typed by someone who's barely touched the originals). I think what helps is how the Mushroom Village hub from the original is brought back as well as the Koopa Troopa who's the same exact Koopa that's the guide of the boards in the first Mario Party, I think that's really cool. I mean yeah he's no Geno or whatever but seeing him so excited to guide again as well as explaining the board events that took place in the N64 days really makes me root for the guy, welcome back bro. oh yeah Toad's hosting again too but he's everywhere
there's only five boards from this game (two from MP1, two from MP2, and one from MP3) and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. granted they're excellent board choices, even if Space Land was a bit of a mess from my experience, but it couldn't have hurt to include a couple of more boards from the later ones. five is just way too low, the original Mario Party has more boards than this game! at least they're not slacking on the minigame department, which has at least 100 of them, all of them coming from the previous console Mario Parties. of course this is no doubt impressive, I don't even think I've gone through every one by the time I finished all five boards. personally some minigames feel near impossible to win if you're facing CPUs on Hard and Master, but that isn't too much of a critique instead more or less a skill issue on my part, as well as the usual Mario Party BS. lastly I want to mention the Lucky Spaces, which I know were definitely not on the original boards. I don't dislike them really I mean whenever you step on one you always get something good I can't hate that, but I do think there's a little too many of them. in comparison to all those Lucky Space spots, there's only been one time someone landed on a Chance Time Space during all five board playthroughs, they should really replace all those Lucky Spaces with Chance Time that'll truly bring out the chaotic Mario Party experience
so yeah I'm done for the time being. playing through all five boards is my personal completion seeing as there's likely no proper ending for this game. there's achievements and collectibles to get, but they're mostly not too special such as stickers and pages about the characters that you can easily find on the Super Mario Wiki, yeah sorry not incentivized with unlocking all of that. you can unlock the option to use the original board music, but I only wish they went all the way by having the option with the minigames too (I know there's 100 of them but it still would have been neat). but yeah I've probably sounded a bit nit-picky during this review but I really did enjoy my time with the game and I'm looking forward to returning whenever I start playing online with my friends. if you're a Mario Party fan, I heavily recommend checking it out, especially if you got other people to play it with either locally or online. this is really a step in the right direction for Mario Party, and I hope that continue to improve onward. so yeah not much else to say, I like that Mario's pose and the dice block is the exact same as MP1, thanks for reading.
you can't select Mario Party DS as your favorite Mario Party, ignore everything I said Mario sucks
now I'm not a Mario Party guy, I was always the Mario Kart one instead so don't expect me to go "THIS ISN'T LIKE THE N64 AND GAMECUBE ONES GRAAAAAH" because my personal experiences with the Hudson Soft Mario Parties doesn't go beyond 8, DS, and recently a tiny bit of 7. I will say that when it comes to the post-Hudson Soft games, this is the one that's definitely the closest to the originals (typed by someone who's barely touched the originals). I think what helps is how the Mushroom Village hub from the original is brought back as well as the Koopa Troopa who's the same exact Koopa that's the guide of the boards in the first Mario Party, I think that's really cool. I mean yeah he's no Geno or whatever but seeing him so excited to guide again as well as explaining the board events that took place in the N64 days really makes me root for the guy, welcome back bro. oh yeah Toad's hosting again too but he's everywhere
there's only five boards from this game (two from MP1, two from MP2, and one from MP3) and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. granted they're excellent board choices, even if Space Land was a bit of a mess from my experience, but it couldn't have hurt to include a couple of more boards from the later ones. five is just way too low, the original Mario Party has more boards than this game! at least they're not slacking on the minigame department, which has at least 100 of them, all of them coming from the previous console Mario Parties. of course this is no doubt impressive, I don't even think I've gone through every one by the time I finished all five boards. personally some minigames feel near impossible to win if you're facing CPUs on Hard and Master, but that isn't too much of a critique instead more or less a skill issue on my part, as well as the usual Mario Party BS. lastly I want to mention the Lucky Spaces, which I know were definitely not on the original boards. I don't dislike them really I mean whenever you step on one you always get something good I can't hate that, but I do think there's a little too many of them. in comparison to all those Lucky Space spots, there's only been one time someone landed on a Chance Time Space during all five board playthroughs, they should really replace all those Lucky Spaces with Chance Time that'll truly bring out the chaotic Mario Party experience
so yeah I'm done for the time being. playing through all five boards is my personal completion seeing as there's likely no proper ending for this game. there's achievements and collectibles to get, but they're mostly not too special such as stickers and pages about the characters that you can easily find on the Super Mario Wiki, yeah sorry not incentivized with unlocking all of that. you can unlock the option to use the original board music, but I only wish they went all the way by having the option with the minigames too (I know there's 100 of them but it still would have been neat). but yeah I've probably sounded a bit nit-picky during this review but I really did enjoy my time with the game and I'm looking forward to returning whenever I start playing online with my friends. if you're a Mario Party fan, I heavily recommend checking it out, especially if you got other people to play it with either locally or online. this is really a step in the right direction for Mario Party, and I hope that continue to improve onward. so yeah not much else to say, I like that Mario's pose and the dice block is the exact same as MP1, thanks for reading.
you can't select Mario Party DS as your favorite Mario Party, ignore everything I said Mario sucks
just a disclaimer before you read: I went through this game by playing the Definitive Edition+ hack which changes up some of the gameplay features, meaning I technically didn’t play the vanilla game as it was meant to be intended, that said I’ll still bring up some stuff about the vanilla game and compare it to how the DE+ version handles them, oh yeah spoilers for Aria of Sorrow since this game is a direct continuation of that
so Dawn of Sorrow, looks like Konami wanted to continue the 2035 storyline so Soma and his friends are back again for a second round. I don’t know, I thought Aria of Sorrow ended off on a good note with the whole Dark Lord rejecting his fate and confronting the Chaos inside of him, but I guess there’s still some more story to tell somehow.
a year after escaping the eclipse, Soma and Mina are just chilling around talking about their day when all of a sudden they get jumpscared by a woman. she sends some monsters to beat the crap out of Soma but unsurprisingly he takes care of them rather easily before the woman goes “blah blah blah they must be a Dark Lord blah blah blah” before disappearing. her name’s Celia Fortner, a member of a cult (different cult than the one in Aria btw, yeah another cult just popped out of nowhere) that wants Soma dead so the title of the Dark Lord can be succeeded by her two cronies: Dario Bossi, a criminal who has history with arson due to his ability to control fire, and Dmitrii Blinov, who can copy the magical abilities of his opponents as well as having an extremely punchable face. Soma’s pretty pissed about the whole situation so he decides to take the initiative and makes his way to their headquarters himself, going as far as ditching the fur coat in exchange for the Seto Kaiba attire, that’s when you know he’s serious. of course, all of Soma buddies such as Yoko, Hammer, Julius, and Arikado are there as well as they proceed to repeatedly tell Soma that he shouldn’t be there and that they will handle it while Soma replies with “shut up, just let me do my thing”. the story’s a bit odd this time and a few of the characters act ever so slightly differently this time around, especially Hammer with how down bad he is for Yoko in this game, not that I blame him really. despite the very minor hiccups, I think it’s a worthy followup to Aria of Sorrow’s storyline, in a few instances I actually like some stuff about it more, such as how Yoko doesn’t nearly die halfway through so she actually has something to do this time around. I also do enjoy the villains even if they aren’t the most menacing ones compared to what we’ve seen in the past. they really are just a bunch of losers attempting to fill in Dracula’s big shoes. I’ll at least acknowledge that they gave out a few plot twists I didn’t see coming, so they’re neat in my book.
there’s no Dracula’s Castle in this one since it got permanently destroyed last time so instead you have to settle with the Diet Coke version. there’s a lot of cool areas here like an abandoned snowy village you have to go through to enter the castle, a mysterious magic lab with a secret underground area, a chapel that has some ghosts forever dancing for eternity, a guest house with waiter skeletons, not one but two towers, and some old runned down similar to the castle entrances of a lot of Castlevania games. oh yeah, there’s also a bunch of random ice blocks cluttered around in some areas, how did they even get there? I get that the castle is located near a cold climate but what benefit is there to place a bunch of ice blocks in these rooms other than to annoy Soma even further? they must be made out of some tough ice too because the only way to get rid of them is via an upgrade that lets you destroy them with the touch screen, which leads to this next segway.
Touch Screen!!! what year was this released? 2005? yep, here’s your touch screen gimmicks. you want to play the game? sign your name with your finger. you need those ice blocks gone? place your finger on them. need to defeat a boss? swing your finger around like a dork. alright joking aside, this game’s going to make you use your touch screen sometimes. all of those ice blocks areas I’ve mentioned? most of them are really only in the Wizardly Lab so you don’t have to concern too much, no worries. then you got the Magic Seals. to enter a boss room, you need to collect a magic seal somewhere in the castle that’ll let you gain access to it. now boss doors, that’s ok. does it take up a couple of seconds to watch it open? yes it does, but, it’s mostly harmless. then they bring them into boss battles. right after you deplete all of a boss’s HP, you need to actually draw the magic seal in order to properly defeat it. why do you have to do this when you could have defeated the bosses in Aria without it just fine? idk. gotta find some use for that touch screen. is this bad? no, well not at first. the first few magic seals aren’t that difficult to draw, the first one is just a simple “V” pattern, easy to understand. then they get a bit more complicated and that when things change. now the actual patterns, they’re a bit annoying, but not too much. the problem here is getting those patterns down right after potentially finishing off a boss. did I mention there’s a time limit? fail to get the pattern correctly in time and all of a sudden, the boss gains more HP and you have to whittle them down again. usually getting them down again isn’t too hard, but for later bosses like Aguni and Death, a failed pattern is likely going to get you a Game Over in return. a clutch kill in any other Castlevania game is turned into a “no u” if you screw up the magic seal. the Definitive+ hack I’ve played actually removes the requirement for dealing with this at the end of a boss battle, so I can’t actually say that I gone through this experience myself outside of watching YouTube videos of other people failing, but I can guarantee I would have screwed up those later seals a lot if I had to do so. I will at least acknowledge that they give you the option to practice the seals via an option in the menu, so you can pretty much teach yourself to get better at them wherever you are in the game.
I’m assuming you’ve probably already played Aria of Sorrow before reading this review so I won’t go into detail about the Soul mechanic, but if you haven’t, why are you playing Dawn before Aria in this day and age? just like Aria, every enemy in the game has a soul you can obtain which is still really impressive. combine that with the new Doppleganger soul that lets you have two different sets of souls and equipment you can switch between anytime and you got yourself a lot of versatility. speaking of equipment, you have the option to make the weapons you obtain more powerful. Yoko’s here to help upgrade them with her weapon synthesis, free at cost unless you count souls as currency. yeah, you need to acquire specific souls to upgrade specific weapons, so you better go and save your cash for that Soul Eater Ring this time around! grinding for souls this time around wasn’t as time consuming as it was in Aria for me as the Definitive+ hack fixed how the Luck stat works so it can actually provide a significant boost to the soul drop rate. having the Soul Eater Ring, Three 7s, as well as the Ghost Dancer soul (provides a boost to your Luck stat) equipped meant that the longest it ever took for me to grind a soul was about 10 or so minutes, not too bad. as for the vanilla game, I’d imagine it’d take a bit longer to get those souls. how much longer? not sure, but if you want my advice: just try to be patient and maybe play some music in the background while you’re grinding for those souls. this does lead to a bit of a negative unfortunately and it’s that weapon synthesis is your only convenient way of getting good weapons in this game. “but can’t you find some good ones hidden in the castle?”, nope lmao. this ain’t like Aria where you can find the most broken weapon by breaking a hidden wall, the cultists at With Light are stingy when it comes to giving you good equipment as all you’ll be finding inside there are beginner and mid-tier weapons. Hammer’s shop doesn’t fair much better, ironic since he’s supposed to be an arms dealer, so if you don’t want to get your butt kicked during the endgame, you absolutely need to grind souls so Yoko can upgrade your weapons, at least you’ll get some new dialogue whenever you talk to her. if you’re really desperate though, just equip a Mandragora soul and stock up on High Mind Ups and you’ll probably destroy most of the bosses.
I forgot to bring this up in my Aria review, but that game had some pretty great bosses, and Dawn continues to throw some more cool ones at you. it starts off with the Flying Armor that flies around and flings his two swords about, then Balore the giant returns albeit much more easier to face off against since he’s the only second boss this time. there’s this weird looking Puppet Master that’s a giant head and four arms that puts marionettes into iron maidens which switch places with you if you don’t destroy them quickly. there’s also some fish monster called Rehab that’s admittedly a little annoying to fight since Soma doesn’t get the ability to sink underwater until after you defeat it. I also have to bring up Zephyr, probably the most memorable fight for some people due to all the DIO nods (stops time, throws knives, fought near a clock tower), which somehow flew past my head when I fought him myself, do not ask me how I have no clue why I didn’t get the hint either. if I have to pick a personal favorite though, it’s probably Gergoth. not only does he look like Shin Godzilla (I know Gergoth came first but you get what I’m saying) but before you face him you have to climb up this tall tower to even reach the guy. right before his second phase, he destroys the floor you’re standing on and crashes down every room you climbed earlier before the two of you reach the bottom floor where the rest of the fight continues, with the destroyed rooms remaining like that for the rest of the game, pure kino. special shoutouts go to Dario and Dmitrii, especially Dmitrii since he has the ability to copy whatever soul you throw at him. normally he’ll defeat you easily if you throw all your good stuff at him, but if you were to use something such as the Student Witch soul on Dmitrii, he’ll be reduced to flinging cats at you for most of the fight, what a jobber. I appreciate how the handheld Castlevanias have been slowly improving their bosses over time, and I’m looking forward to seeing how cool they’ll be in the next two games.
Julius Mode is back, now in the flavor of Castlevania III! you got a Belmont, a Belnades, and an Alucard, all to your own luxure! unfortunately it’s not a true Castlevania III experience because there’s no playable DaNasty so I have to give this mode a 0/10. that time in Dracula’s Castle last year must have done a number to him because he’s not nearly as broken as was in Aria. he moves slightly slower, he lost the Omnia Vantias, and his uppercut barely reaches that much distance. thankfully Yoko and Alucard are here to aid old boomer Julius’s apparent weaknesses as Yoko has a backdash that covers a lot of ground while Alucard can fly around as a bat like he could in Castlevania III, all three characters have their uses so you’ll for sure be using all of them during your playthrough. overall it’s pretty similar to the one in Aria, even down to having little to no cutscenes, which admittedly is a bit disappointing since this game’s Julius Mode is supposed to take place right after the bad ending so it’s kind of a missed opportunity to have some dialogue here. that said it’s not really a major problem and the mode is still fun to go through so I’d recommend it if you want more Julius as well as Yoko and Alucard.
the game looks great, it’s pretty much a continuation of how Aria looked except with bigger character sprites, nothing to really say much here it’s just really nice. of course I have to address that elephant in the room, and that’s the new artstyle for all the characters. Ayami Kojima who did the artwork for most of the Castlevanias since Symphony of the Night is noticeably absent in this game. as far as I can gather, IGA had a new artist with a much more anime-inspired artstyle to take over for this game as he wanted to start marketing the handheld Castlevanias towards a younger playerbase. as for the new artstyle, it looks….fine. I’m not going to go into a rant about how the new artwork is bad because it’s not Kojima or how it looks way too anime, on its own it works and in one case it’s actually better as the new portraits are a lot more expressive than the ones in the previous game. if anything, the biggest problem with the art is that they’re directly following off of Aria, which can be a big whiplash if you’re playing the two games back-to-back. I really think IGA should have at least let Kojima stick around for Dawn so the jump wouldn’t be so jarring; you wouldn’t make a sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles and have a completely new person make all the character artwork, right? the Definitive+ hack implements the Kojima portraits from Aria in as well as giving the new characters their own styled portraits as well so if want to have them in Dawn then the hack has you covered. on the flip side for the people that actually prefer the vanilla art (I know you’re out there and that’s okay I’m not judging you) there’s an optional patch to keep the original portraits alongside all the improvements that come from Definitive+.
probably going to be a hot take, but I’m not feeling the music in this one as much as I’d like to. Obviously the soundtrack isn’t bad, quite good actually, but interestingly I found the tracks in Aria to be more memorable and catchy tracks despite Dawn having better audio capabilities. that said, I still enjoyed what I got to hear so I’ll go through the tracks I’d like to mention. A Fleeting Respite is the prologue for this game and as well as the theme that plays whenever you meet up with Yoko and it’s a fine soothing track to hear when you want to rest and get those weapons upgraded. Pitch Black Intrusion is a great piece to suit your infiltration of the hideout you’re heading towards, elevated by taking place in the cool Lost Village. Dracula’s Tears is a very groovy track for a spooky magic lab, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t find any jazz remixes of it online. Scarlet Battle Soul might be my second favorite track in the game, it really gives Dario and Dmitrii more of a threatening vibe unless we’re taking the cat ammo into consideration. Condemned Tower continues the trend of the tower areas having great music and has a similar thing going like Aria’s Clock Tower with it starting sinister at the beginning but becoming bombastic later on. Cursed Clock Tower is pretty alright at first but that second half gets pretty intense and foreboding, I enjoy. Into the Dark Night is definitely my favorite track, this is without a doubt the “time to kick ass” theme, and to no surprise one of the bosses that gets this theme is my main man Gergoth, another epic win. did you know there’s an unused track called Amber Scenery? it’s pretty much a remixed arrangement of Subterranean Hell and hoo boy what an arrangement. the track already starts off excellently but it just keeps better the longer it continues, and god man they even went and brought in that PIANO near the end. me when the best track doesn’t even get used in the actual game
what’s there left to say? great sequel, great game, great Soma. I will surely miss seeing these goofballs but it’s not everyday you get a second game to appear in so they definitely ate good. Dawn is a bit flawed in some areas but I’d still say it’s an excellent Metroidvania, even if I’ve pretty much enjoyed every single one I’ve played so far. if you’ve played Aria of Sorrow yet somehow haven’t played this one yet, go and fix that because this should be high on your to-do-list. apparently though the next two Castlevania games are peak. maybe. well I hope they are so yeah, I’m just gonna stop typing and move on to those ones now. bye
in the end, Hammer never scored….
so Dawn of Sorrow, looks like Konami wanted to continue the 2035 storyline so Soma and his friends are back again for a second round. I don’t know, I thought Aria of Sorrow ended off on a good note with the whole Dark Lord rejecting his fate and confronting the Chaos inside of him, but I guess there’s still some more story to tell somehow.
a year after escaping the eclipse, Soma and Mina are just chilling around talking about their day when all of a sudden they get jumpscared by a woman. she sends some monsters to beat the crap out of Soma but unsurprisingly he takes care of them rather easily before the woman goes “blah blah blah they must be a Dark Lord blah blah blah” before disappearing. her name’s Celia Fortner, a member of a cult (different cult than the one in Aria btw, yeah another cult just popped out of nowhere) that wants Soma dead so the title of the Dark Lord can be succeeded by her two cronies: Dario Bossi, a criminal who has history with arson due to his ability to control fire, and Dmitrii Blinov, who can copy the magical abilities of his opponents as well as having an extremely punchable face. Soma’s pretty pissed about the whole situation so he decides to take the initiative and makes his way to their headquarters himself, going as far as ditching the fur coat in exchange for the Seto Kaiba attire, that’s when you know he’s serious. of course, all of Soma buddies such as Yoko, Hammer, Julius, and Arikado are there as well as they proceed to repeatedly tell Soma that he shouldn’t be there and that they will handle it while Soma replies with “shut up, just let me do my thing”. the story’s a bit odd this time and a few of the characters act ever so slightly differently this time around, especially Hammer with how down bad he is for Yoko in this game, not that I blame him really. despite the very minor hiccups, I think it’s a worthy followup to Aria of Sorrow’s storyline, in a few instances I actually like some stuff about it more, such as how Yoko doesn’t nearly die halfway through so she actually has something to do this time around. I also do enjoy the villains even if they aren’t the most menacing ones compared to what we’ve seen in the past. they really are just a bunch of losers attempting to fill in Dracula’s big shoes. I’ll at least acknowledge that they gave out a few plot twists I didn’t see coming, so they’re neat in my book.
there’s no Dracula’s Castle in this one since it got permanently destroyed last time so instead you have to settle with the Diet Coke version. there’s a lot of cool areas here like an abandoned snowy village you have to go through to enter the castle, a mysterious magic lab with a secret underground area, a chapel that has some ghosts forever dancing for eternity, a guest house with waiter skeletons, not one but two towers, and some old runned down similar to the castle entrances of a lot of Castlevania games. oh yeah, there’s also a bunch of random ice blocks cluttered around in some areas, how did they even get there? I get that the castle is located near a cold climate but what benefit is there to place a bunch of ice blocks in these rooms other than to annoy Soma even further? they must be made out of some tough ice too because the only way to get rid of them is via an upgrade that lets you destroy them with the touch screen, which leads to this next segway.
Touch Screen!!! what year was this released? 2005? yep, here’s your touch screen gimmicks. you want to play the game? sign your name with your finger. you need those ice blocks gone? place your finger on them. need to defeat a boss? swing your finger around like a dork. alright joking aside, this game’s going to make you use your touch screen sometimes. all of those ice blocks areas I’ve mentioned? most of them are really only in the Wizardly Lab so you don’t have to concern too much, no worries. then you got the Magic Seals. to enter a boss room, you need to collect a magic seal somewhere in the castle that’ll let you gain access to it. now boss doors, that’s ok. does it take up a couple of seconds to watch it open? yes it does, but, it’s mostly harmless. then they bring them into boss battles. right after you deplete all of a boss’s HP, you need to actually draw the magic seal in order to properly defeat it. why do you have to do this when you could have defeated the bosses in Aria without it just fine? idk. gotta find some use for that touch screen. is this bad? no, well not at first. the first few magic seals aren’t that difficult to draw, the first one is just a simple “V” pattern, easy to understand. then they get a bit more complicated and that when things change. now the actual patterns, they’re a bit annoying, but not too much. the problem here is getting those patterns down right after potentially finishing off a boss. did I mention there’s a time limit? fail to get the pattern correctly in time and all of a sudden, the boss gains more HP and you have to whittle them down again. usually getting them down again isn’t too hard, but for later bosses like Aguni and Death, a failed pattern is likely going to get you a Game Over in return. a clutch kill in any other Castlevania game is turned into a “no u” if you screw up the magic seal. the Definitive+ hack I’ve played actually removes the requirement for dealing with this at the end of a boss battle, so I can’t actually say that I gone through this experience myself outside of watching YouTube videos of other people failing, but I can guarantee I would have screwed up those later seals a lot if I had to do so. I will at least acknowledge that they give you the option to practice the seals via an option in the menu, so you can pretty much teach yourself to get better at them wherever you are in the game.
I’m assuming you’ve probably already played Aria of Sorrow before reading this review so I won’t go into detail about the Soul mechanic, but if you haven’t, why are you playing Dawn before Aria in this day and age? just like Aria, every enemy in the game has a soul you can obtain which is still really impressive. combine that with the new Doppleganger soul that lets you have two different sets of souls and equipment you can switch between anytime and you got yourself a lot of versatility. speaking of equipment, you have the option to make the weapons you obtain more powerful. Yoko’s here to help upgrade them with her weapon synthesis, free at cost unless you count souls as currency. yeah, you need to acquire specific souls to upgrade specific weapons, so you better go and save your cash for that Soul Eater Ring this time around! grinding for souls this time around wasn’t as time consuming as it was in Aria for me as the Definitive+ hack fixed how the Luck stat works so it can actually provide a significant boost to the soul drop rate. having the Soul Eater Ring, Three 7s, as well as the Ghost Dancer soul (provides a boost to your Luck stat) equipped meant that the longest it ever took for me to grind a soul was about 10 or so minutes, not too bad. as for the vanilla game, I’d imagine it’d take a bit longer to get those souls. how much longer? not sure, but if you want my advice: just try to be patient and maybe play some music in the background while you’re grinding for those souls. this does lead to a bit of a negative unfortunately and it’s that weapon synthesis is your only convenient way of getting good weapons in this game. “but can’t you find some good ones hidden in the castle?”, nope lmao. this ain’t like Aria where you can find the most broken weapon by breaking a hidden wall, the cultists at With Light are stingy when it comes to giving you good equipment as all you’ll be finding inside there are beginner and mid-tier weapons. Hammer’s shop doesn’t fair much better, ironic since he’s supposed to be an arms dealer, so if you don’t want to get your butt kicked during the endgame, you absolutely need to grind souls so Yoko can upgrade your weapons, at least you’ll get some new dialogue whenever you talk to her. if you’re really desperate though, just equip a Mandragora soul and stock up on High Mind Ups and you’ll probably destroy most of the bosses.
I forgot to bring this up in my Aria review, but that game had some pretty great bosses, and Dawn continues to throw some more cool ones at you. it starts off with the Flying Armor that flies around and flings his two swords about, then Balore the giant returns albeit much more easier to face off against since he’s the only second boss this time. there’s this weird looking Puppet Master that’s a giant head and four arms that puts marionettes into iron maidens which switch places with you if you don’t destroy them quickly. there’s also some fish monster called Rehab that’s admittedly a little annoying to fight since Soma doesn’t get the ability to sink underwater until after you defeat it. I also have to bring up Zephyr, probably the most memorable fight for some people due to all the DIO nods (stops time, throws knives, fought near a clock tower), which somehow flew past my head when I fought him myself, do not ask me how I have no clue why I didn’t get the hint either. if I have to pick a personal favorite though, it’s probably Gergoth. not only does he look like Shin Godzilla (I know Gergoth came first but you get what I’m saying) but before you face him you have to climb up this tall tower to even reach the guy. right before his second phase, he destroys the floor you’re standing on and crashes down every room you climbed earlier before the two of you reach the bottom floor where the rest of the fight continues, with the destroyed rooms remaining like that for the rest of the game, pure kino. special shoutouts go to Dario and Dmitrii, especially Dmitrii since he has the ability to copy whatever soul you throw at him. normally he’ll defeat you easily if you throw all your good stuff at him, but if you were to use something such as the Student Witch soul on Dmitrii, he’ll be reduced to flinging cats at you for most of the fight, what a jobber. I appreciate how the handheld Castlevanias have been slowly improving their bosses over time, and I’m looking forward to seeing how cool they’ll be in the next two games.
Julius Mode is back, now in the flavor of Castlevania III! you got a Belmont, a Belnades, and an Alucard, all to your own luxure! unfortunately it’s not a true Castlevania III experience because there’s no playable DaNasty so I have to give this mode a 0/10. that time in Dracula’s Castle last year must have done a number to him because he’s not nearly as broken as was in Aria. he moves slightly slower, he lost the Omnia Vantias, and his uppercut barely reaches that much distance. thankfully Yoko and Alucard are here to aid old boomer Julius’s apparent weaknesses as Yoko has a backdash that covers a lot of ground while Alucard can fly around as a bat like he could in Castlevania III, all three characters have their uses so you’ll for sure be using all of them during your playthrough. overall it’s pretty similar to the one in Aria, even down to having little to no cutscenes, which admittedly is a bit disappointing since this game’s Julius Mode is supposed to take place right after the bad ending so it’s kind of a missed opportunity to have some dialogue here. that said it’s not really a major problem and the mode is still fun to go through so I’d recommend it if you want more Julius as well as Yoko and Alucard.
the game looks great, it’s pretty much a continuation of how Aria looked except with bigger character sprites, nothing to really say much here it’s just really nice. of course I have to address that elephant in the room, and that’s the new artstyle for all the characters. Ayami Kojima who did the artwork for most of the Castlevanias since Symphony of the Night is noticeably absent in this game. as far as I can gather, IGA had a new artist with a much more anime-inspired artstyle to take over for this game as he wanted to start marketing the handheld Castlevanias towards a younger playerbase. as for the new artstyle, it looks….fine. I’m not going to go into a rant about how the new artwork is bad because it’s not Kojima or how it looks way too anime, on its own it works and in one case it’s actually better as the new portraits are a lot more expressive than the ones in the previous game. if anything, the biggest problem with the art is that they’re directly following off of Aria, which can be a big whiplash if you’re playing the two games back-to-back. I really think IGA should have at least let Kojima stick around for Dawn so the jump wouldn’t be so jarring; you wouldn’t make a sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles and have a completely new person make all the character artwork, right? the Definitive+ hack implements the Kojima portraits from Aria in as well as giving the new characters their own styled portraits as well so if want to have them in Dawn then the hack has you covered. on the flip side for the people that actually prefer the vanilla art (I know you’re out there and that’s okay I’m not judging you) there’s an optional patch to keep the original portraits alongside all the improvements that come from Definitive+.
probably going to be a hot take, but I’m not feeling the music in this one as much as I’d like to. Obviously the soundtrack isn’t bad, quite good actually, but interestingly I found the tracks in Aria to be more memorable and catchy tracks despite Dawn having better audio capabilities. that said, I still enjoyed what I got to hear so I’ll go through the tracks I’d like to mention. A Fleeting Respite is the prologue for this game and as well as the theme that plays whenever you meet up with Yoko and it’s a fine soothing track to hear when you want to rest and get those weapons upgraded. Pitch Black Intrusion is a great piece to suit your infiltration of the hideout you’re heading towards, elevated by taking place in the cool Lost Village. Dracula’s Tears is a very groovy track for a spooky magic lab, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t find any jazz remixes of it online. Scarlet Battle Soul might be my second favorite track in the game, it really gives Dario and Dmitrii more of a threatening vibe unless we’re taking the cat ammo into consideration. Condemned Tower continues the trend of the tower areas having great music and has a similar thing going like Aria’s Clock Tower with it starting sinister at the beginning but becoming bombastic later on. Cursed Clock Tower is pretty alright at first but that second half gets pretty intense and foreboding, I enjoy. Into the Dark Night is definitely my favorite track, this is without a doubt the “time to kick ass” theme, and to no surprise one of the bosses that gets this theme is my main man Gergoth, another epic win. did you know there’s an unused track called Amber Scenery? it’s pretty much a remixed arrangement of Subterranean Hell and hoo boy what an arrangement. the track already starts off excellently but it just keeps better the longer it continues, and god man they even went and brought in that PIANO near the end. me when the best track doesn’t even get used in the actual game
what’s there left to say? great sequel, great game, great Soma. I will surely miss seeing these goofballs but it’s not everyday you get a second game to appear in so they definitely ate good. Dawn is a bit flawed in some areas but I’d still say it’s an excellent Metroidvania, even if I’ve pretty much enjoyed every single one I’ve played so far. if you’ve played Aria of Sorrow yet somehow haven’t played this one yet, go and fix that because this should be high on your to-do-list. apparently though the next two Castlevania games are peak. maybe. well I hope they are so yeah, I’m just gonna stop typing and move on to those ones now. bye
in the end, Hammer never scored….
2021
Celeste fans have been real quiet since Cat Milk dropped
there's a few stuff in Sonic 3 Complete that I prefer a bit more, but the endless mod possibilities and being able to wall jump that annoying sand section in Sandopolis Act 2 with Mighty probably makes this the best version of Sonic 3 out there
overall 9/10: there was indeed air in the game
overall 9/10: there was indeed air in the game
pretty good but I must admit the game's a bit fast-paced, the 5 FPS during Labyrinth Zone was a little too quick for my liking
"Fact is, Vince Gilligan couldn't have it without me."
~ Robert "Klacid" Hurrell, creator of Azumanga Daioh! The Druglord Game
~ Robert "Klacid" Hurrell, creator of Azumanga Daioh! The Druglord Game
long long ago in the distant past of 1997, Nintendo hosted their annual SpaceWorld trade show, where they would showcase all the new consoles and games they were developing. one of the games that was shown during the event was an early demo version of Pokémon Gold and Silver, created by Game Freak fresh off of Pokémon Blue’s development. after the event this early version would fall into obscurity, with the only evidence left of its existence being a couple of screenshots and short clips on the internet. twenty years later, this prototype would suddenly remerge online in all its glory, revealing just how different this game would have been compared to what we got. Gold and Silver 97: Reforged (which I’ll be referring to as G/S Reforged from this point onward) is basically a what-if game. what if Game Freak went through with the ideas they had in the ‘97 build of Pokémon G/S and polished them up for the final release?
a lot of things are different in this Gen 2: the story, the region, the type matchups, and of course the Pokémon. welcome to Nihon, where Victory Road lies right near your home, a town’s located in the middle of a desert, and Kanto has been stitched up into one giant Frankensteined city! not only that but your rival’s not an ass, Blue’s helping out Oak on research, and the Gym order has changed a bit and even includes two newcomers. Nihon is an excellent region and I’d go into more detail about it, but I don’t want to spoil you on everything. probably the biggest appeal for everyone going into this game is being able to use the scrapped and cut Pokémon, and yes, they’re all here.
immediately 2/3 of your starters are different as you can start off with a fire bear or a water seal, Chikorita fans rejoice they’re still here (unless you’re a Bayleef fan then you’re out of luck). many old Pokémon like Ponyta and Vulpix now have pre-evolutions, some like Tangela and Lickitung who got evolutions later on have their own variations here, and some like Pinsir and Farfetch’d that had no evolutionary line are given their own much deserved ones to help keep up in the endgame. as for the completely new ones, if you ever wanted to use a Water/Fire Pokémon that’s not a Mythical, this game’s got you covered. how about some cool Water/Steel shark with an anchor attached to it? you can get one easily as soon as you get Surf. you know that thing biting Slowking’s head? it’s a Pokémon here! how about a cursed voodoo doll that evolves into a jiangshi panda? now you can! need a cool Ice Type that wears the fur coat of its dead enemies? easily findable in the ice areas! and of course the best for last, you can encounter the Electric Type “Kotora” early on in the game, a goofy little tiger that absolutely mogs Pikachu in every category (except in Speed but let’s pretend it does). You want to know who deserves the mascot title more than Pikachu? this guy. Fun Fact: Kotora was also planned to be in Gen 1 as well, which means that Game Freak had the audacity to get rid of this little guy twice, this is why we can’t have nice things. to lighten things up, did I mention that all the new Pokémon featured here have their own Dex entries? it’s really cool to see all the new Pokémon get fleshed out with Dex information for both versions. oh yeah, there’s two versions of this hack: one with Gold styled sprites and one with Silver styled sprites. they could have just left it with one version but they went all the way and created two sets of sprites for all the scrapped Pokémon, and I really appreciate that.
another thing I like about G/S Reforged is that it also incorporates the SpaceWorld 97 type chart, which is fairly different from the final game. Steel Types has less resistances but is no longer weak to Fire Fighting and Ground Types, Poison still deals super effective damage to Bug, Ghost Type does neutral to itself as does Steel to Ice, and Dark Types suck! imagine being weak to not only Normal but your own Type couldn’t be me. if this wacky type chart I’m describing is too much for your liking, you can change it back to the final game’s type chart through the Options anytime you want, which I’d recommend to do whenever you need to grind up levels for any Dark Type mons in your party. speaking of levels, I’m sure most of you already know this, but the official G/S has a bit of a problem with its level curse, as after the fourth Gym the path splits two ways, with both paths being low leveled so you can go through them in either order. due to this you’re likely to be overleveled by the time you start the Team Rocket gauntlet full of the same few static Pokémon. thankfully in G/S Reforged you’ll mostly be going through a clockwise circle with very few detours, which while it means the journey is more straightforward than the ones in Kanto and Johto, it also means the level curve moves perfectly fine here. say goodbye to facing off Lv. 20 Rattatas and Poison Types for a third of the main game!
honestly I really can’t think of many problems with G/S Reforged, it’s really just a better G/S/C, at least from a gameplay standpoint. I guess I could at least mention that there’s quite a lack of proper online guides for this hack, meaning your best bet into figuring out where to find things like items is by scrolling through the data on its GitHub page, which can be kinda cumbersome.
this is probably going to be the most you’ll hear someone talk about this hack unless a later reviewer comes along and gives their thoughts about it. this review definitely could have been longer and more in-depth, but not only am I lazy, but I think you’re better off experiencing everything else on your own. Gen 2 and Johto really mean a lot to me as it’s pretty much the first Pokémon region I went through from start to finish, so being able to witness an alternative reality of what my childhood Pokémon could have been is an absolute treat. judging from the lack of full playthroughs online as well as how few reviews have been written before mine, it doesn’t really seem like a lot of people have played this specific hack, which is outright a shame. I myself have done two playthroughs: my 2021 Gold one with the final type chart, and my 2023 Silver one with the SW97 type chart, so you can tell I really like this rom hackl. if you’re a Gen 2 enthusiast like I am then I’d highly recommend playing G/S Reforged if you haven’t already,which you probably haven’t. boot it up and check the game out, you won’t regret it.
Kotora Gang
a lot of things are different in this Gen 2: the story, the region, the type matchups, and of course the Pokémon. welcome to Nihon, where Victory Road lies right near your home, a town’s located in the middle of a desert, and Kanto has been stitched up into one giant Frankensteined city! not only that but your rival’s not an ass, Blue’s helping out Oak on research, and the Gym order has changed a bit and even includes two newcomers. Nihon is an excellent region and I’d go into more detail about it, but I don’t want to spoil you on everything. probably the biggest appeal for everyone going into this game is being able to use the scrapped and cut Pokémon, and yes, they’re all here.
immediately 2/3 of your starters are different as you can start off with a fire bear or a water seal, Chikorita fans rejoice they’re still here (unless you’re a Bayleef fan then you’re out of luck). many old Pokémon like Ponyta and Vulpix now have pre-evolutions, some like Tangela and Lickitung who got evolutions later on have their own variations here, and some like Pinsir and Farfetch’d that had no evolutionary line are given their own much deserved ones to help keep up in the endgame. as for the completely new ones, if you ever wanted to use a Water/Fire Pokémon that’s not a Mythical, this game’s got you covered. how about some cool Water/Steel shark with an anchor attached to it? you can get one easily as soon as you get Surf. you know that thing biting Slowking’s head? it’s a Pokémon here! how about a cursed voodoo doll that evolves into a jiangshi panda? now you can! need a cool Ice Type that wears the fur coat of its dead enemies? easily findable in the ice areas! and of course the best for last, you can encounter the Electric Type “Kotora” early on in the game, a goofy little tiger that absolutely mogs Pikachu in every category (except in Speed but let’s pretend it does). You want to know who deserves the mascot title more than Pikachu? this guy. Fun Fact: Kotora was also planned to be in Gen 1 as well, which means that Game Freak had the audacity to get rid of this little guy twice, this is why we can’t have nice things. to lighten things up, did I mention that all the new Pokémon featured here have their own Dex entries? it’s really cool to see all the new Pokémon get fleshed out with Dex information for both versions. oh yeah, there’s two versions of this hack: one with Gold styled sprites and one with Silver styled sprites. they could have just left it with one version but they went all the way and created two sets of sprites for all the scrapped Pokémon, and I really appreciate that.
another thing I like about G/S Reforged is that it also incorporates the SpaceWorld 97 type chart, which is fairly different from the final game. Steel Types has less resistances but is no longer weak to Fire Fighting and Ground Types, Poison still deals super effective damage to Bug, Ghost Type does neutral to itself as does Steel to Ice, and Dark Types suck! imagine being weak to not only Normal but your own Type couldn’t be me. if this wacky type chart I’m describing is too much for your liking, you can change it back to the final game’s type chart through the Options anytime you want, which I’d recommend to do whenever you need to grind up levels for any Dark Type mons in your party. speaking of levels, I’m sure most of you already know this, but the official G/S has a bit of a problem with its level curse, as after the fourth Gym the path splits two ways, with both paths being low leveled so you can go through them in either order. due to this you’re likely to be overleveled by the time you start the Team Rocket gauntlet full of the same few static Pokémon. thankfully in G/S Reforged you’ll mostly be going through a clockwise circle with very few detours, which while it means the journey is more straightforward than the ones in Kanto and Johto, it also means the level curve moves perfectly fine here. say goodbye to facing off Lv. 20 Rattatas and Poison Types for a third of the main game!
honestly I really can’t think of many problems with G/S Reforged, it’s really just a better G/S/C, at least from a gameplay standpoint. I guess I could at least mention that there’s quite a lack of proper online guides for this hack, meaning your best bet into figuring out where to find things like items is by scrolling through the data on its GitHub page, which can be kinda cumbersome.
this is probably going to be the most you’ll hear someone talk about this hack unless a later reviewer comes along and gives their thoughts about it. this review definitely could have been longer and more in-depth, but not only am I lazy, but I think you’re better off experiencing everything else on your own. Gen 2 and Johto really mean a lot to me as it’s pretty much the first Pokémon region I went through from start to finish, so being able to witness an alternative reality of what my childhood Pokémon could have been is an absolute treat. judging from the lack of full playthroughs online as well as how few reviews have been written before mine, it doesn’t really seem like a lot of people have played this specific hack, which is outright a shame. I myself have done two playthroughs: my 2021 Gold one with the final type chart, and my 2023 Silver one with the SW97 type chart, so you can tell I really like this rom hackl. if you’re a Gen 2 enthusiast like I am then I’d highly recommend playing G/S Reforged if you haven’t already,
Kotora Gang
they put him on a Land, they put him in a World, now….they’re gonna put him on a Land.…again!
Super Mario Land 2 is this odd middle ground in ways. this game is trying to be more of a traditional Mario game like Super Mario World with the overworld and minigames, but at the same time it’s still going for its own unique identity like Super Mario Land was. I appreciate that they didn’t go with the usual “princess gets kidnapped” for the story this time as instead you’re going to Mario Land to retrieve Mario’s castle back from Wario who took over while he was rescuing Daisy back at Sarasaland.
why does Mario live around here anyway, what a weird place to put your castle in. there’s a random house that shrinks Mario to micro size, a giant pumpkin with a forest full of yokai and witches, a turtle that eats Mario and sends him underwater where he ventures inside of a whale, a giant mechanical Mario statue which implies that Mario has servants or followers that built him a big old Mario, a hippo that snorts bubbles that sends Mario to space filled with angry stars that hurt you instead of turning you invincible, and at the end of the place you even fight Tatanga who was the final boss of the first Mario Land. the only relatively normal zone out here is the tree one but even then you end up going inside a giant beehive and facing a boss at the end that’s literally called “Big Bird”. oh right there’s also a cave that houses a random casino, Mario enjoys gambling??? well Luigi does own and run a casino later on in the franchise so it probably runs in the family. all this raises a question though: was Mario Land always like this before Wario arrived, or did Wario really stink up the place that much? I need more lore on this supposed Mario Land. what’s Mario’s daily routine here? where did he get the space suit for the Space Zone? how much money does he spend on gambling per night? why are the Three Little Piggies inside the Mario?
eventually Mario collects the 6 Golden Coins from the bosses (hence the subtitle) and gains access to the castle and goes in to take it back. the castle’s pretty tough, it’s the longest level in the game and there’s no checkpoints so you have to do it all in one go. at the end you face off against Wario who has three different phases, and no, losing to him doesn’t mean you start again in the room before the battle. I’d like to assume Wario throws you out of the window if you fail to defeat him which explains why you have to climb up the whole castle again each time.
speaking of Wario, what an odd first appearance here. he’s not the usual greedy and egotistical anti-hero that he’s known for nowadays, instead he’s a straight up psychopath. he’s twice Mario’s height, his head takes up more than half of his body, his googly eyes are dead and empty, and that smile is filled with nothing but malice. that’s not Wario, that’s the embodiment of chaos. he doesn’t want to become rich, all he wants is to see Mario slowly suffer until there’s nothing left to his name. oh yeah he also uses the power ups in this game during his own fight, so not only is he a schizo, but he’s quite literally a bootleg Mario.
I think this game is neat. I’ll admit the controls are a bit off compared to something like SMB3 or SMW, but they’re an improvement over the previous Super Mario Land and I approve of improvement. not to mention the game’s oozing with a unique personality just like Mario Land 1. though if I had to choose between Sarasaland or Mario Land, I’d probably go with Sarasaland since there’s still a sense of Mario over there. Mario Land feels like it takes place in its own wacky dimension, but there’s nothing wrong with that. if anything, the whole thing feels like a prototype of what Wario Land’s overall mood would end up like, and we all know anything associated with Wario is automatically cool.
unfortunately nothing in this game reminds me of Donkey Kong so that brings it down a bit
Super Mario Land 2 is this odd middle ground in ways. this game is trying to be more of a traditional Mario game like Super Mario World with the overworld and minigames, but at the same time it’s still going for its own unique identity like Super Mario Land was. I appreciate that they didn’t go with the usual “princess gets kidnapped” for the story this time as instead you’re going to Mario Land to retrieve Mario’s castle back from Wario who took over while he was rescuing Daisy back at Sarasaland.
why does Mario live around here anyway, what a weird place to put your castle in. there’s a random house that shrinks Mario to micro size, a giant pumpkin with a forest full of yokai and witches, a turtle that eats Mario and sends him underwater where he ventures inside of a whale, a giant mechanical Mario statue which implies that Mario has servants or followers that built him a big old Mario, a hippo that snorts bubbles that sends Mario to space filled with angry stars that hurt you instead of turning you invincible, and at the end of the place you even fight Tatanga who was the final boss of the first Mario Land. the only relatively normal zone out here is the tree one but even then you end up going inside a giant beehive and facing a boss at the end that’s literally called “Big Bird”. oh right there’s also a cave that houses a random casino, Mario enjoys gambling??? well Luigi does own and run a casino later on in the franchise so it probably runs in the family. all this raises a question though: was Mario Land always like this before Wario arrived, or did Wario really stink up the place that much? I need more lore on this supposed Mario Land. what’s Mario’s daily routine here? where did he get the space suit for the Space Zone? how much money does he spend on gambling per night? why are the Three Little Piggies inside the Mario?
eventually Mario collects the 6 Golden Coins from the bosses (hence the subtitle) and gains access to the castle and goes in to take it back. the castle’s pretty tough, it’s the longest level in the game and there’s no checkpoints so you have to do it all in one go. at the end you face off against Wario who has three different phases, and no, losing to him doesn’t mean you start again in the room before the battle. I’d like to assume Wario throws you out of the window if you fail to defeat him which explains why you have to climb up the whole castle again each time.
speaking of Wario, what an odd first appearance here. he’s not the usual greedy and egotistical anti-hero that he’s known for nowadays, instead he’s a straight up psychopath. he’s twice Mario’s height, his head takes up more than half of his body, his googly eyes are dead and empty, and that smile is filled with nothing but malice. that’s not Wario, that’s the embodiment of chaos. he doesn’t want to become rich, all he wants is to see Mario slowly suffer until there’s nothing left to his name. oh yeah he also uses the power ups in this game during his own fight, so not only is he a schizo, but he’s quite literally a bootleg Mario.
I think this game is neat. I’ll admit the controls are a bit off compared to something like SMB3 or SMW, but they’re an improvement over the previous Super Mario Land and I approve of improvement. not to mention the game’s oozing with a unique personality just like Mario Land 1. though if I had to choose between Sarasaland or Mario Land, I’d probably go with Sarasaland since there’s still a sense of Mario over there. Mario Land feels like it takes place in its own wacky dimension, but there’s nothing wrong with that. if anything, the whole thing feels like a prototype of what Wario Land’s overall mood would end up like, and we all know anything associated with Wario is automatically cool.
unfortunately nothing in this game reminds me of Donkey Kong so that brings it down a bit